An Unrealized Dream

By Yevhen Karelsky, The Day

Ukrainian sports fans spent all last week waiting for further successes at the XVIII Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, the beginning to which was founded by the silver medal Helena Petrova won the individual 15 kilometer biathlon competition. It would have been most logical to expect yet another medal in relay, though all other representatives of Ukrainian biathlon did not succeed at the classical distance. For example, three time silver medalist Helena Zubrylova was 28th and bronze medalist at the 1994 Olympics Valentyna Tserbe was 47th. The 24th position of experienced Tatyana Vodopyanova also did not cause much stir. True, we also had Nina Lemesh. She and Iryna Merkushyna substituted for Zubrylova and Tserbe in the relay. But nothing came of it. Once again Petrova was stronger than her teammates. But she came in eleventh, 56.5 seconds behind Russian gold medalist Galina Kukleva.

The biathlon was not the only exciting event for the Ukrainian national team in Nagano. Figure skating, especially male individual, was the second in importance. Ukraine was represented by two stars of the nineties, Viacheslav Zahorodnyk and Dmytro Dmytrenko. Zahorodnyk was injured 6 months before the Olympics and spent more time trying to recover than improving his program. But even the worst pessimist could not predict his 16th position for him after a short program. Perhaps there is some referee out to get Ukraine - when they gave 11th position to our pair Yevheniya Filonenko and Ihor Marchenko, the stands broke out shouting and whistling in disrespect at the obviously biased judging. However, in male individual skating not only the judges were biased. It seems that management and coaches failed to take a few new things into account: it is hard to believe that Russian skaters Illya Kulik and Aleksey Yagudin learned the quadruple spin jump, forgetting the classical elements. When our compatriots failed at something, they seemed to have learned the best. It is always way too hard to catch up with the leaders and it is no surprise that representatives of Bulgaria, Denmark and Azerbaijan turned out to be ahead of our Viacheslav. Zahorodnyk came in tenth, Dmytrenko fourteenth.

We almost had a pleasant surprise in bobsledding, though not in the female individual competition, where we put much hope in Natalia Yakushenko and Lyliya Ludan. Nagano games is the third Olympics for Yakushenko, which is a remarkable achievement for a woman. But our ladies only made it to the average 11th and 16th positions. But can we blame them for that, when the only tracks we have are splitting apart in Vyshhorod and Kremenets and the main problem for German, American, Austrian, and Italian sledders is to travel from one perfect track to another. The surprise was when results had been made public and both Yakushenko and our male pairing Ihor Urbansky-Andriy Mukhin turned out to have higher positions than their colleagues from Russia and Latvia, where training tracks meet international standards. Our boys came in seventh after two days' competition. This is a real success, considering all the problems mentioned. Another Ukrainian pair, Oleh Avdeev and Daniele Panchenko from Lviv, came in 11th.

Only 2.9 seconds separated Ukrainian skier Iryna Terelya-Taranenko from a bronze medal in Nagano. The 31 year-old Ukrainian from near Kyiv came in fourth in the 10 km race, an outstanding achievement, because the skiers began the race according to the Gunderson system, considering the results of the 5 kilometer race. Iryna was 11th, 40 seconds behind the leader Larisa Lazutina from Russia, who won. But Terelya-Taranenko outdistanced 7 (!!!) during the race.

After she finished, the monitor showed the result: 48.10.02 and the long expected third, meaning a bronze medal. But unfortunately, Anita Mohen-Gvidon from Norway outstripped her 2.9 seconds, winning the bronze medal and pushing Terelya-Taranenko one step behind. But fourth is also a remarkable achievement for our leader.

Photo by Volodymyr Rasner, The Day
Iryna Terelya: her personal best